It is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,840,647 that certain fluorophosphite ligands may be used to form transition metal complexes that serve as catalysts in a wide variety of transition metal catalyzed processes. A particularly suitable process is the hydroformylation or oxo reaction to form aldehydes. It is further known from the above patent that fluorophosphite diester compounds are useful as ligands in catalyst systems for the conversion of olefins to aldehydes. The fluorophosphite ligands can be substituted for, or used in combination with, known phosphite and/or phosphine ligands in a wide variety of catalyst systems using a transition metal as the primary catalyst component. Thus, the catalyst system comprises a combination of one or more transition metals selected from the Group VIII metals and rhenium and one or more fluorophosphite compounds having the general formula wherein R1 and R2 are hydrocarbyl radicals which contain a total of up to about 40 carbon atoms and wherein the ratio of gram moles fluorophosphite ligand to gram atoms transition metal is at least 1:1. The catalyst systems may be used in a wide variety of transition metal-catalyzed processes such as, for example, hydroformylation, hydrogenation, isomerization, hydrocyanation, hydrosilation, carbonylations, oxidations, acetoxylations, epoxidations, hydroamination, dihydroxylation, cyclopropanation, telomerizatons, carbon hydrogen bond activation, olefin metathesis, olefin dimerizations, oligomerizations, olefin polymerizations, olefin-carbon monoxide copolymerizations, butadiene dimerization and oligomerization, butadiene polymerization, and other carbon-carbon bond forming reactions such as the Heck reaction and arene coupling reactions. The catalyst systems comprising rhodium as the transition metal are especially useful for the hydroformylation of olefins to produce aldehydes and, therefore, are preferred.
When using the above fluorophosphite-containing transition metal catalysts in the various types of processes, there is a possibility that fluoride may be present in the processes due to decomposition of the fluorophosphite ligand transition metal complex. Therefore, when using a fluorophosphite-containing transition metal catalyst to produce a product, it would be desirable to have a means for reducing the amount of fluoride which may be produced during production processes.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a process of using a fluorophosphite-containing transition metal catalyst wherein the amount of fluoride which may be produced in the process is reduced.